


it wasn't like a rain (it was more like a sea)

by thegatorgood



Category: What We Do in the Shadows (TV)
Genre: Bad Puns, First Time, Fuck or Die (ish), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:34:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25984480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegatorgood/pseuds/thegatorgood
Summary: "But when you look into modern dictionaries that have done more research, with all the new cuneiform inscriptions found since the 1823 translation, you find that it's also frequently used to mean 'to penetrate.'  In the sexual sense."
Relationships: Guillermo de la Cruz/Nandor the Relentless
Comments: 30
Kudos: 135
Collections: CAILURE EXCHANGE 2020





	it wasn't like a rain (it was more like a sea)

**Author's Note:**

> FOR #13.
> 
> I WOULD LIKE TO THANK YOU FOR THE GRATE PROMPT, AND APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR THE PUNS, AMONG OTHER THINGS. I'M NOT SAYING THE WORKING TITLE FOR THIS WAS DICK THAT BALM, BUT I'M NOT NOT SAYING IT.

He'd intended to untie Nandor last. Guillermo wasn't sure why exactly--because he was touched by Nandor saying he cared, or angry about Nandor bringing up the fucking laundry, or because he wanted to take his time, to show Nandor he needed him, to rub Nandor's hands afterwards and restore the vampire's slow, practically non-existent circulation--but by the time he was finished undoing the ropes around Nadja, the documentary crew had decided to help out, and Nador and Colin Robinson were already shrugging out of their bonds.

"Sorry, man," the sound tech muttered, "but we should probably get out of here pronto."

"Before the Vampiric Council comes back?" Guillermo asked. Nandor was lurking behind the crew like he wasn't six feet tall and wearing a massive cape, like he could just happen to avoid Guillermo's gaze if he hunched his shoulders a little and pretended to be extremely interested in Nadja and Laszlo hugging each other and complaining about the show's choreography and costuming. 

"I was actually thinking the police," said the sound tech.

"Maybe animal control," said the camera person. "There were a lot of bats flying out of the theater."

"How about the fire department?" said Colin Robinson.

Guillermo took a deep breath. He knew what Colin Robinson was suggesting--he'd seen _Interview with the Vampire_ a few dozen times, knew what Louis would do. "Okay. I think there's supplies in the trunk--"

"Because Guillermo got in some pretty sick burns back there, am I right?"

"Shut up, Colin Robinson," said Nadja.

It wasn't technically Colin Robinson's fault, Guillermo had to keep telling himself on the ride back. He probably needed to feed after what had happened at the theater. It was the way energy vampires _were_. The running commentary in the car was to be expected. And it saved Guillermo and Nandor--who was sitting in the back passenger side seat, arms folded, staring out the window--from an awkward silence, or an even more awkward conversation.

Or a shouting match, because when Guillermo pulled up to the house, and saw the cerw had already parked their van out front, and he parked behind it and turned off the engine and opened the car door, Nandor cut off Colin Robinson's lecture on forensic techniques vis-a-vis incinerated corpses. "I didn't say you could come back home."

He was outside of the car too, glaring at Guillermo across its roof.

"Okay," said Guillermo, drawing in a deep breath, thinking _Who cares what your last name is. Laundry. Kill him with my bare hands._ "I'm only here to pick up the mini-fridge, and then I'll be gone for good."

"Hey," said Nandor, blinking, "I didn't say you could leave again, either."

Guillermo slammed the door shut. "I couldn't stay here even if I wanted to," he said, and Nandor flinched. "Didn't you see what happened back there? I kill vampires! I'm really good at killing vampires! I can't risk being around vampires because I'm just that good at killing them!"

"You have not yet killed me," said Nandor, like that meant anything, then cleared his throat. "Or Nadja, or Laszlo."

"I should bloody well hope not," said Nadja, coming over from the van. "What would have been the point of killing all those vampire assassins if you were just going to murder us all anyway?"

Colin Robinson coughed. "I think what Guillermo is trying to say here is that he doesn't want to make any mis-stakes."

"Shut up, Colin Robinson," said Guillermo, and Colin Robinson blinked, but he couldn't have known about that awful moment after Carol's death, when Guillermo had turned and nearly stabbed Nandor through the heart. He couldn't have known Guillermo still had nightmares about that, either. At least Guillermo hoped Colin Robinson didn't know. He'd probably be even more insufferable if he had.

"Okie-dokie," said Colin Robinson. "You got your point across."

"Shut up, Colin Robinson," Nandor said, still looking at Guillermo. _He_ definitely remembered that moment after Carol's death, Guillermo thought, a lump in his throat.

"Hang on," said Laszlo, "you say you can't be here in case you accidentally kill us, which you have somehow failed to do in the last three years--"

" _Eleven_ years."

"--but if you fuck off and leave us to the mercy of the Vampiric Council, you're as good as killing us on purpose."

"Yes," said Nadja. "For once my husband is correct. How are we supposed to defend ourselves from the assassins when you won't even let us know that they're here or what they look like?"

"Actually, I was quite keen on letting Gizmo keep on killing--"

"At the very least you should tell us what you know, or let us hire another familiar who can wave a crucifix at anyone who comes looking to kill us," said Nadja. "Or you will have painted a great big target on your back for nothing, which is very bloody stupid, even for a man."

She was right, Guillermo realized. He'd left for all of a week, and the four of them had walked into an obvious trap because they were idiots, but also because he'd never told them the Vampiric Council was sending assassins after them in the first place. Also because they were idiots, but he hadn't wanted them to know about his Van Helsing heritage, and the last time he'd confessed to killing a vampire, Nadja and Laszlo had been onboard with eating him for it.

Nandor hadn't, though. And that had to mean something, right? Guillermo looked at Nandor again, but Nandor was determinedly inspecting a loose thread on his cuff.

"Okay," said Guillermo. "I'll stay. On a few conditions."

"Oh, not more bloody conditions," Nadja muttered. 

"First, I'm taking the mini-fridge back to my mom. Second--second, I'm not coming back here as a familiar. I think I might be less inclined to kill all, or any, of you if you can do the bare minimum of saying please and thank you and remembering my name, but I'm still not going to take orders, and I think I might be less murderous if I get a reasonable amount of sleep every day."

"What," said Laszlo, "a whole eight to twelve hours depending on the season?"

"But who is going to get rid of the bodies?" Nadja asked.  
"And who is going to watch over us when _we_ are sleeping?" Nandor asked.

"I'll do it," said Colin Robinson, hand raised. "I'm already awake during the day, and I can just call in sick to work. I'll tell everybody I have shingles, and then, a couple of weeks later, I'll come back talking about how I beat shingles through the power of homeopathy. Maybe I'll use some of the office rulers and hole-punchs to scratch my back when my coworkers are looking."

"Thanks," said Guillermo. "I guess."

"Of course, HR might notice that I don't have any accrued sick leave because nobody ever actually hired me, but that's a risk I'm willing to take because right now the stakes are so high."

"Shut _up_ , Colin Robinson," Laszlo said.

-

So barely a week after moving out for the sake of the vampires' safety and his own sanity, Guillermo moved back in. Into the house again. Into his tiny closet of a room that made him feel a lot less like Armand and a lot more like Harry Potter at the Dursleys', before he knew he was a wizard.

He would have said it was better, because now he got to sleep uninterrupted, he didn't have to pay rent, he could spend his free time during the day cooking for himself--and, within another week, Nadja and Laszlo's new familiar, who, between harvesting virgins, mopping up pools of blood, disposing of corpses, and deep cleaning the Cravensworth sex toy collection, didn't have much time to get good, nutritious meals of her own. She was also very good when it came to keeping the windows covered and the doors locked and not letting any strange vampires in. Guillermo didn't even need to remind her to: she came from a small town in the midwest, in one of those states that began with an I, and her parents were convinced that danger was lurking around every corner in New York and she could never be too careful.

"What they don't know is that I am the danger," said Sally, it to him one evening over roasted chicken and sweet potato wedges with thyme, lemon and parsley. Her dark eyes were intense under her dyed hair. 

Guillermo wondered if he liked her more than Topher because she was a much better familiar than Topher, or because she reminded him of himself when he was nineteen, and still found vampires dark and dreamy. Either way, he was feeling charitable, so he didn't point out that she wouldn't be the danger for another ten years, if ever. Nadja and Laszlo didn't have the best track record when it came to familiars.

But despite the solid sleep and the healthy food and a weird glow to his skin that Guillermo was beginning to think might be health, it wasn't better, because once the sun went down Guillermo was on edge again. He was back to carrying weapons and waiting for the vampire assassins to strike, and when they didn't come, the adrenaline had no outlet. He was too ready to kill any vampire, and so there were a lot of close calls, stakes hurled to the ground, holy water sprayed on the walls, crucifixes shoved back into his pockets, and the Spaghetti Incident.

To counter that, he tried to take time when he could put down his weapons and simply sit in the vampires' presence without feeling like he had to be murderous. He'd gone back to brushing Nandor's hair nightly: there was a soothing, meditative quality to the work, and Nandor was relaxed, almost pliant, under his hands, and he'd ordered a plastic-handled hairbrush off Amazon so he couldn't turn it into a makeshift stake.

There were also house meetings in the library several times a week. They were mostly quiet affairs, checking into see if anyone had noticed and dispatched any vampire assassins recently, or heard of what the Vampiric Council might be planning next. 

("Let's face it," Colin Robinson said one night, about a month later. "They probably didn't think we'd be stupid enough to stay in Staten Island and they're busy hunting for us in Argentina or Australia or some place on the other side of the world."

Guillermo thought he might be right, hoped he was right, but then what if the Vampiric Council realized they were that stupid, and came back? And he never knew when that would be. He had to stay vigilant.)

Otherwise the meetings were an hour of distributing the mail while Laszlo and Nadja composed sad outlaw ballads and Nandor and Guillermo played chess, and Colin Robinson read big, dusty books and cleared his throat every sixty seconds. Colin Robinson aside, it was kind of nice to be a part of the vampire-only house meetings, and to not be ordered to do anything while he was there. To be treated like an equal. Guillermo was working on a joke for the documentary crew about familiarity breeding contempt, but he hadn't found an opportunity to deploy it yet.

One night, he'd just moved a rook forward when Colin Robinson cleared his throat more obnoxiously than usual, and kept on clearing it, until Nadja snapped, "What do you want, Colin Robinson?"

"Oh, nothing." Guillermo could feel Nadja getting ready to strangle Colin Robinson, and her murderous energy had him tensing and ready to reach for the silver knife in his ankle holster. (He didn't leave _all_ his weapons in his room.) "I've just been reading the new translation of _Of Fledermäuse and Men_. One of the real seminal works of vampirology. The original was about four thousand years old, and I've gotta say, these new translators must be necromancers because they are really bringing this baby to life. It's not like the previous version, which is full of euphemisms and done by the sort of people who thought a split infinitive was also a kind of mortal sin."

"Look what you've done," groaned Laszlo. Guillermo hadn't lived with Colin Robinson as long as the others had, but even he knew better than to let Colin Robinson get started on linguistics. Actually, all it had taken was e exposure to Colin Robinson's discourse on the meaning and misuse of the word “decimate”s when Guillermo twenty-one and, looking back, he wasn't sure how he'd survived it.

"And, boy, is it juicy, especially the footnotes. See, there's this passage with a verb that was _previously_ translated as stab, but its _root_ meaning is closer to 'to pierce through.'"

"Oh," said Nadja, "how lovely, a handbook on the art of slaying vampires, I really don't think Guillermo needs any more help with that."

It was both reassuring and really annoying that even after seeing him murder a large room full of vampires, Nadja wasn't afraid of Guillermo at all.

" _But_ when you look into modern dictionaries that have done more research, with all the new cuneiform inscriptions found since the 1823 translation, you find that it's also frequently used to mean 'to penetrate.'"

Laszlo rolled his eyes. "Shut up, Col--"

"In the sexual sense."

"Carry on."

"So this text says that once a vampire slayer has thoroughly pierced through--or penetrated--"

"Fucked," said Laszlo lasciviously.

"--a vampire, that vampire is regarded as having been safely defeated, and is no longer a target for a vampire slayer.

"Are you suggesting," said Nadja, after a pause that Guillermo hoped was just as awkward for everyone else, "that if we let ourselves be penetrated by Guillermo, he is less likely to kill us? Because that was a stupid idea even in the fifteenth century."

Nandor's fingers clenched so hard around his bishop that the piece broke and its head popped off and tumbled across the carpet. 

"And it's even stupider today. If someone wants to kill you, the smart thing to do is kill him first and then you no longer have to worry about him killing you."

Nandor hissed at her, so suddenly and violently that Laszlo flung himself behind the sofa. "This is my ex-familiar you are talking about killing! We would all be dead if not for him! Show some respect!"

Guillermo had blushed when he'd realized Colin Robinson and Nadja were talking about him having intercourse with the vampires, but now he felt even warmer. He was about to thank Nandor for standing up for him when Colin Robinson said, "Technically, we were going to be executed for his crimes. Which you knew about."

"Well," said Nandor awkwardly. 

They hadn't talked about that any more than they'd talked about Nandor claiming responsibility for the Baron's death to save Guillermo from the Vampiric Council. Actually, they'd talked about it less, because a few days after the escape from the bottom of the well, Nandor had mumbled something that sounded like, "Thank you for saving our lives," one morning when he was already in his coffin, and either hadn't heard Guillermo's reply or pretended he hadn't. 

"There is also an inference here that it makes the penetrated vampire immune to other slayers," said Colin Robinson, "and that's not something you could get by simply killing Guillermo."

"Does it really? Well, as I've never said no to a good rogering, or even a mediocre rogering, I volunteer--"

"How do we know that when it says penetrate and safely defeated it doesn't mean that Guillermo can also kill us with his penis?" asked Nadja. 

"--Nandor as tribute," Laszlo finished. 

Guillermo looked across the chess table at Nandor, now feeling as unbearably hot as a vampire in a church, about to burst into flames. "Master," he began, then cursed himself. 

"Okay, fine," said Nandor, almost too quickly. "I am a great warrior and I fear neither death nor butt stuff."

"In case anyone was wondering," said Colin Robinson, "I'm not really a suitable subject for this little experiment, because most of the ancient texts we have refer to energy vampires as ghouls. A lot of the old taxonomies classified us separately from vampires because of the whole day walking, no blood drinking thing. It's only within the last few centuries that we've been linked--"

"Are you sure?" Guillermo asked. 

"Well, there's been some debate--"

"Not you," said Guillermo. Nandor was staring down at the chess board like the time he'd borrowed Guillermo's phone to play Angry Birds and accidentally opened the Stocks app and how to make things go back to normal again. He'd been looking like that a lot recently. "Nandor? Are you sure?"

"And why would I not be?"

Guillermo decided against reminding Nandor of all the times he'd refused to let Guillermo hug him or even hold his hand, because it'd probably sound pathetic that he'd kept track, that he'd even cared, and he was trying not to be pathetic. "I really don't want to accidentally kill you, Master," he said, and then immediately wished that he hadn't. 

"I told you," said Nandor, as he stood up and flipped over the chess board, "I do not fear death!" He leveled one finger at Guillermo. "I will see you Friday at eight in my crypt."

And then he stormed out. 

As Guillermo picked up the pieces so he could put them away, even the broken bishop, Colin Robinson chuckled. "I guess he did know you were on track to win that game. How many moves to checkmate?"

"Two," said Guillermo numbly, no longer able to feel any joy at the thought of toppling Nandor's king. 

-

When he woke Monday afternoon, Guillermo saw his laptop staring at him from his desk, and remembered all the desperate Google searches he'd run, how close he'd gotten to submitting an online reference request at the public library, and how he'd only stopped because there was no way to phrase it that didn't sound crazy, or like he was dragging some poor librarian into his very weird sexual fantasies. 

What Colin Robinson had found, it couldn't be real, could it? A way to keep the three vampires he lived with safe from him, and from other slayers, possibly forever. 

But maybe a way that would accidentally kill them? Guillermo almost wished Laszlo had volunteered himself. Worst case scenario, Laszlo was dead. Other worst case scenario: Guillermo lost his virginity to Laszlo Cravensworth. He could live with that, though. He wasn't sure he could live with killing Nandor, even after everything. 

He groaned, rolled out of bed, and went to make himself breakfast. He'd just finished washing up when Sally came in and said, "Uh, Guillermo? It's about the radial saw...."

And that was how Guillermo spent several hours in the garden shed, walking Sally through maintenance routines for their various corpse disposal tools. It took his mind off last night, and off of _Friday night_ and, besides, Sally was everything Topher wasn't. She wanted to be a vampire. She respected Guillermo's expertise. She took notes. It was flattering. 

"You know," she said, "I've been looking into fire pits. It's less environmentally friendly, but then we use all this electricity for the dismembering, and the sinkholes aren't great either."

"I'm not sure we're zoned for that," said Guillermo, keeping his fingers crossed that they weren't. If Sally installed a fire pit, one or two or all three of the vampires would end up burning the house down. He headed back into the house, conscious that he was late to brush Nandor's hair and hoping that it wouldn't be weird, but when he got there, Nandor's door was locked. 

"He left," said Nadja, materializing out of the gloomy hallway behind him. Guillermo tossed the stake he'd grabbed in the other direction, heard it clatter against the floorboards. 

"What?" said Guillermo. "When? Why?"

"About an hour ago." Nadja studied her nails and did not look at where the stake had gone. "He said he was going to see a star war and then get the dry cleaning on the way back, if it isn't too perilous."

"Why?"

Nadja shrugged again. "I guess he likes stars warring? And Laszlo persisted in giving him advice on how many fingers go up the bum."

Guillermo had thought that after eleven years of living with two extremely horny vampires and helping said vampires prepare to host an orgy, he wouldn't blush at that, and yet he did. 

"Only Laszlo was doing the thing where he's not really giving advice, just talking about this bloody stupid porno he filmed in 1997. There's nothing magical about fisting, I keep telling him, it's not my fault he's got a very capacious--"

"I have to go," said Guillermo, and fled. 

Tuesday Nandor still wasn't back, and Laszlo cornered Guillermo on the landing. Guillermo nearly tossed a shaker of garlic salt into his face, but twisted his wrist at the last moment so it fell over the bannister and landed with a thump on the carpet. 

"Just the man I was looking for!" said Laszlo. "Now, you may be wondering why I am carrying this mannequin, and, well, I don't want to brag, but I do have extensive experience in the amorous arts, and I thought I might provide some illustration."

"Uh," said Guillermo, considering joining the garlic salt on the floor. It was, what, a ten foot drop? Twelve? If he tucked in his shoulder and--

"Now, what position were you thinking of starting out in? I personally prefer the reverse cowboy, but--"

Guillermo found his hands creeping towards his silver knuckles. "Hey," he said, "I think the doorbell's ringing, I'd better make sure it's not another vampire assassin wanting to cut off your head," he said, before barreling down the stairs to safety. 

Wednesday Guillermo was browsing the App Store for meditation apps that might help him find something like the peace he did while brushing Nandor's hair. He missed brushing Nandor’s hair. He missed Nandor being there. It was weird, but sometimes when he woke up, after the Theater, he could feel Nandor’s presence, like Nandor had been in his room. And maybe he had: Nandor had seemed so put out by Guillermo leaving that Guillermo wouldn’t have put it past him to wake up in the middle of the day and check to see that Guillermo hadn’t left again. But Nandor wasn’t coming into Guillermo’s room during the day that week, and he wasn’t in his own room to have his hair brushed at night, and Guillermo needed something to calm his severely frayed nerves. Possibly killing Nandor was bad enough without having Laszlo and Nadja talk to him about sex. He was thirty years old! He had access to the internet! And he was in the kitchen because the WiFi was better there and not because he was hiding from the vampires who, he was almost sure, did not even know they had a kitchen and if they did, had long forgotten where it was and what it was for. 

"You know," said the Nadja doll, who had been _hiding in the cupboard_ , what the fuck, "the only thing you need to know about penetrative sex is that you should make sure the other party comes first."

"Dios mío," said Guillermo. A steak knife was quivering in the door frame and he didn't even remember throwing it. But the haunted Nadja doll wasn't a vampire and she barely batted an eye at the curse or the knife. "Thanks," he said. It was at least better advice than what Laszlo or Nadja had tried to give him. 

"I'm not telling you this for Nandor, of course. I'm telling you this because if it does work, you're going to have to service Nadja too and she deserves to have considerate lovers."

Guillermo dropped his head into his hands. "Why did you have to remind me of that?"

"Also, put your back into it, but not too into it, or she'll rip out your spine."

Guillermo downloaded half a dozen highly rated meditation apps. None of them worked. 

Thursday, Laszlo clapped a hand over Guillermo's shoulder right as he was about to head out the door. Guillermo hadn't even heard him approach, but he'd left most of his weapons behind because the mall didn't approve of extremely pointy objects. 

"Cold feet, eh?"

"I'm going shopping," Guillermo protested. For cologne, and nicer clothes, and maybe roses--no, the roses were too much. No, were the roses too much? There was no one in the house that Guillermo would trust to answer that question. 

"It's understandable that you might be feeling a tad jittery," said Laszlo, completely ignoring him. "Nandor is an absolute stud of a vampire, and you're only human, Giz--Gick--Gueemo. Still, you need to let yourself relax and enjoy it and know that you can only do the best you can."

The mangling of his name aside, Guillermo thought that that wasn't bad advice and he appreciated the sentiment. 

But Laszlo wasn't finished talking. "My village had the most marvelous saying for times like these, you know: Don't need toes to fuck."

"What would toes even-- You know what, pretend I didn't ask, I'm going to miss my bus," said Guillermo, but the entire evening he couldn't stop thinking, _Toes?_ He made the mistake of googling it while still on the bus, and the person in the seat behind him developed a Colin Robinson-level cough. 

-

When he woke up on Friday, Guillermo screamed into his pillow. Oddly enough, it made him feel better than any of the apps had, but he still felt like a complete wreck. Nandor was either still watching the stars war, or he'd come home already but was refusing to answer his crypt door, or something terrible had happened to him at the dry cleaners. Only the first option didn't make Guillermo feel like panicking--except it did a little, because space battles seemed like a bucket list kind of thing, and what if Nandor thought he was going to die tonight? But it was still better than pointedly not talking to Guillermo, or being badly wounded or dead or dying because he wouldn't send Sally to pick up the dry-cleaning instead. 

Guillermo decided that maybe a bath help. A nice, hot bath with some of the aromatherapy oils he'd bought yesterday. He soaked until he felt better, then washed his hair and pumiced his feet just in case. 

He got dressed in the clothes he'd picked out yesterday: new dark slacks, a crisp new shirt, and a sweater with warm undertones the salesperson said would compliment his skin tone. He sprayed some cologne on. He thought he’d been smelling a little off, ever since the theater. Carol could smell him being a slayer, and maybe it was that. If it was, he didn’t want to remind Nandor of it. Guillermo spent five minutes rearranging his collar in the mirror before he realized he was stalling, and that he didn't want to be late, and this time, when he knocked, Nandor opened the door. Guillermo was about to ask when he'd gotten back, but he got distracted by the glimpse of the room beyond. 

There were candles. There were lots of candles. New candles, brought out for tonight. Nandor was wearing the green and black tunic with the gold trim. It smelled like roses in the room, although Guillermo couldn't see any, and of olive oil. Guillermo suddenly became aware that he hadn't eaten since before he'd gone to bed, and that he was very hungry. For a second he wanted to do nothing more than turn around and run out of the room, the house, maybe all of Staten Island, and find a nice quiet bistro where he could get a plate of burrata and basil and big beefy slices of heirloom tomato. 

He stood there, managed not to call Nandor "Master," and croaked out a "Hi," instead. 

"Hi," said Nandor. His hair looked nice. Guillermo felt betrayed that Nandor's hair could look so nice without him around to brush it. And he recognized the tunic now. It was the one Nandor had settled on when he wanted to impress Sergei the Mad Arsonist but not look like he was trying to impress him. 

Was Nandor trying to impress _him_? As Guillermo entered the crypt, he could see a bunch of long, prickly stems poking out of the garbage can, and when he peered into Nandor's coffin he could see a few petals crushed into the corners, presumably where Nandor hadn't been able to dig them out. 

It was unreal. Not that Guillermo had ever thought about intercourse with a vampire, apart from before he'd known they existed, and then in the first two years of his familiarship, and then in the run-up to their tenth anniversary--okay, Guillermo had thought about intercourse with a vampire, had thought about it a lot, but he'd always pictured it differently. There'd be a vampire knocking at his window, and then floating through, feeding on him, turning him, like Nadja did to Laszlo. Or, since Guillermo's room in the vampires' house didn't have any windows, Nandor knocking on his door, climbing onto his bed, and ravishing him. That was how it was supposed to go, wasn't it? Guillermo was supposed to be the one in danger. Guillermo was supposed to be the one who was changed utterly by the act. 

"It's okay," said Nandor, like he'd been reading Guillermo's mind. And then, because he hadn't been reading Guillermo's mind, "I won't hurt you."

And it struck Guillermo that all those years, he'd slept with a crucifix under his pajamas. If Nandor had tried to sexily surprise turn him at any point, he'd have gotten burnt and the whole thing would have devolved into shouting and groveling and maybe, if Guillermo's luck was really bad, death. 

Guillermo swallowed. Was there a way to discreetly check his neck around a vampire? He didn't feel the chain, and he distinctly remembered taking it off before getting into the bathtub and not putting it back on. He really hoped that if Nadja or Laszlo needed to wash their hands or rinse their mouths tonight they'd use a different bathroom, but Nandor should be safe. He let out a sigh of relief. 

"Yes," said Nandor. "I went to a Star War convention and gorged on virgins all week. I could not drink another drop of blood."

"I don't know if you noticed," said Guillermo, "but one of the reasons I became your familiar is because I kind of _want_ you to bite me--"

Nandor disappeared and rematerialized right into Guillermo's personal space. He was maybe an inch away at most. Guillermo was overwhelmed by the smell of olive oil, the wool of Nandor's clothes, the chill of his body. One of his hands was clamped around the back of Guillermo's neck, and his fangs--

"Sorry," Nandor said. "I meant it. Not another drop." He didn't move his mouth away from Guillermo's neck, though. After a few frustrating seconds he kissed the skin there, his lips closed and dry, his beard brushing pleasantly at Guillermo’s nerve endings. 

"And then I girded myself to pick up the dry-cleaning," he said. "It was not such an ordeal, even if I had to wait in a queue, and in a queue behind a young man who smelled of offensive weaponry."

"Axe." Guillermo cleared his throat. Nandor's lips had stayed on his skin, moving as he spoke, his tongue pressing against Guillermo's pulse, and even though it wasn't the same thing as Guillermo's old fantasies, it was still hot. "I can't say I blame you," he said, running his hand over Nandor's hair. Nandor leaned into it, making the same sound of pleasure he did when Guillermo brushed it. "You might have had the right idea, getting out of the house for a week. Laszlo and Nadja kept trying to give me advice."

"Pssht," said Nandor. "Don't listen to those perverts. I will show you what to do." He trailed his lips up Guillermo's throat, over his jaw, stuck his nose in Guillermo's ear for a second--it tickled--and then he was kissing Guillermo. 

Guillermo clung and kissed back. This was more like his fantasies. He could do this. He dug his fingers into Nandor's hair. Of course, in his fantasies, the kiss was bloody. Nandor would have bitten Guillermo's throat and have drunk his blood, and then he'd open a wound on his hand or wrist so Guillermo could drink his blood and complete the process and, yes, there would be some sucking involved. Guillermo had lost most of his romantic notions about vampires on a whole the third or fourth time he'd found Laszlo trying to fuck the taxidermied albatross, but surely being turned by Nandor--or just being with Nandor--would be erotic. Amazing. Intimate. 

"Guillermo," whispered Nandor, pulling back and touching his face. 

"Yes, Master?" He was so gentle. Guillermo had not expected he would be so gentle. 

"May I remove your eyeglasses? They are mashing against my face."

"Oh," Guillermo fumbled them off and placed them on an end table. "Yeah, they do that. Better?"

"Yes," said Nandor. 

Guillermo's vision was trying to adjust, and rather than deal with the momentary dizziness, he closed his eyes and tucked his face into where Nandor's neck met the collar of his tunic. "You smell good," he said, because it was true. And the hunger in the pit of his stomach when he buried his nose against Nandor's skin, the desire to lick, to bite, was almost like being a vampire. 

"It is the olive oil," said Nandor. "I was out of my regular moisturizer so I ordered it on the lines. It's extra virgin, so you--you humans will find me sexy."

"Extra--" Guillermo wondered what it must be like to go through life looking like Nandor did and tostill smear what was technically food all over yourself because you thought it'd make humans find you attractive. "You really didn't need to do that, Mas--Nandor."

"Well, the glitter didn't work." Guillermo could hear the pout in Nandor's voice. " _Twilight_ lied about the glitter."

"You're sexy without olive oil or glitter." It wasn't like Nandor could exactly look at himself in a mirror, and soothing Nandor's ego was familiar territory. This time it was even true. He ran his hands down the sides of Nandor's tunic. "You're--"

"I bet you say that to all the vampires," Nandor said suddenly. He stepped back and left Guillermo's hands hanging in mid-air. 

Guillermo had been about to say, "a vampire," but he hadn't meant it like that. Over the last eleven years, a truly concerning number of vampires had expressed their interest in eating Guillermo, but he hadn't fantasized about any of them crawling into his bed and drinking his blood. A few of them had even, before the ten year mark, said they might turn him in exchange for a nibble, but Guillermo had always told them no, thank you, because he believed in playing by the rules, and because he'd wanted it to be Nandor. He'd so badly wanted it to be Nandor, and he'd never stopped and asked himself why. "No. I'm saying that to you. Because you're _you._ Even if you do smell like an Italian restaurant."

Nandor smiled. "It works," he said, and Guillermo couldn't help himself. He pulled Nandor's head down and kissed him. 

Guillermo had taken Nandor's clothes off thousands of times before, but on very few of those occasions had he been in a haze of arousal, and even fewer in the warmth of feeling wanted. It was distracting, and it didn't help that his instinct was to set aside the clothes neatly to avoid creases, or that Nandor was pulling his sweater off and trying to undo his shirt. 

"These are very tricky," said Nandor, "all these little buttons."

"It's okay," said Guillermo, unbuckling Nandor's belt, then nearly stumbling over his boots. "Let me--"

"No, let me--"

Nandor dissolved into a mist, reappeared behind Guillermo to get a better grip on his fly, and in the process palmed him through his slacks. Guillermo let out the most embarrassing noise, and his head fell back against Nandor's chest. 

"Did you like that?"

"Yes," said Guillermo, rocking back against Nandor, and realizing that Nandor had dissolved right out of his own clothing and was now entirely naked. 

It shouldn't be that big of a deal, he told himself again. He'd seen Nandor naked a lot. He'd helped him change clothes. He'd helped him bathe. With his glasses _on_. He wasn't going to turn into a panicked, babbling mess because there was a naked vampire behind him. _Play it cool, Memo,_ he told himself. _Play it--_ "Oh," he said, as Nandor wrapped around his back and palmed him again. He could feel Nandor's erection against the small of his back. "Oh." It was warm and big and slightly sticky and very immediate. One of Nandor's fingers was dipping beneath the waistband of his slacks. He could come now, he thought, but then he'd probably have to flee to another hemisphere. "Maybe you could get in the coffin, and I'll finish taking my pants off."

"Yes," said Nandor, apparently willing to concede defeat against Guillermo's zipper, and then, as he walked towards the coffin and Guillermo very carefully undid his fly and slid his pants and underwear down, "No!"

Guillermo felt like he'd been slapped. His eyes stung, watered. Maybe he was going to have to flee to another hemisphere after all. "It's okay," he said, trying to keep his voice level, "if you--"

"I need to put down the absorbent towels first," said Nandor, floating to the chiffonier. "And fetch the olive oil."

Guillermo clamped down on a panicked giggle, but at least Nandor hadn't changed his mind. And it was good he'd remembered the absorbent towels, the inside of his coffin was a real pain in the ass to clean, but--

"Guillermo," said Nandor. He was standing in his coffin, one hand extended, waiting for Guillermo to take it. 

Guillermo still wasn't a vampire. He didn't need an invitation. 

But it was nice to be asked. 

There wasn't a lot of space in the coffin. Guillermo didn't really care. His hands were shaking, and he nearly dropped the olive oil, and Nandor, instead of yelling at him for being clumsy, reached out and took Guillermo's hand and kissed his knuckles. Nandor's fingers were trembling but his eyes were dark and his face was braced and brave. Guillermo’s fingers were also trembling, and he wondered if maybe he should have let Nadja and Laszlo lecture him on preparation, but Nandor had said he would show him what to do, and he did.

Guillermo wanted to say, I really hope this doesn't kill you, but he didn't know if it would come out as he meant it, or if he'd say, why didn't you want to make me a vampire, why didn't we do this sooner, or, I love you, so he said nothing, and pushed in. 

It was amazing. It was overwhelming. Guillermo said, "Wow, Master," which was exactly why he should have kept his mouth shut, but Nandor just smiled, like he probably smiled when Guillermo said that when they flew. And that smile, that look of approval, of affection, that Guillermo almost never got to see was almost enough to make Guillermo believe this was something more than a transaction, a ritual, that Nandor might have wanted this too, and then he must have nudged Nandor's prostate because Nandor said, "Fucking fuck," and Guillermo forgot about the absorbent towels and the stability of the coffin's plinth and Colin Robinson and just gave in, and it felt good. It felt really, really good. It felt--

Guillermo had one of Nandor's legs over his shoulder and the other hooked around his waist and it was a lot, and he could tell it was a lot for Nandor too, because Nandor kept saying, "Yes, yes, right there, good, Guillermo--" until he broke off and looked directly into Guillermo's eyes and said, "So, does this mean you will stay here with me?"

"What?"

"Once you have gotten rid of the slaying urges," said Nandor, and how was he speaking in complete sentences, was Guillermo doing this wrong, was-- "I know what a distraction such insatiable desires can be."

Guillermo managed to wrap his hand around Nandor's cock and it seemed to derail his train of thought for a few seconds; it definitely derailed Guillermo's train of thought for a few seconds. But for Nandor to ask him to stay--when he was--when they were--Guillermo didn't trust himself to answer. "You do?" he asked instead, stroking Nandor, stroking into Nandor. 

"Yes," hissed Nandor. "For eleven years, Guillermo, you have smelled so delicious and it was all I could do to not--" He caressed Guillermo's neck and dug two of his fingernails into the skin over Guillermo's jugular, and Guillermo came. 

"Sorry, sorry," he said a few seconds, a minute, an eternity later, his face planted on Nandor's chest. His hand was still between them, and he finished what he hoped wasn't the most awkward handjob of Nandor's seven and a half centuries of existence. Nandor, if he had any complaints, didn't voice them, which almost certainly meant he didn't have any complaints. Nandor had moved his hand from Guillermo's neck to his hair, and was running his fingers through it. His other hand slipped between them and he seemed to be massaging his seed into Guillermo's skin. It might have been gross, but it was nice to be touched, and anyway, Guillermo's own seed was _in_ Nandor, so Guillermo really wasn't in a position to object. 

After a while he mustered up the energy to pull out, and then the courage to lay back down on Nandor, who still wasn't complaining. "You wanted to drink my blood all this time?"

"You were very virginal," said Nandor. "And you kept shoving your throat in my face." Which, yeah. "I was afraid that if I got started I would not be able to stop and, you know, whoops. Like Pringles."

Guillermo sighed. "You could have said something about it." He nudged Nandor's pec with his nose. "You could have _done_ something about it." Something like the ravishing Guillermo had been dreaming about all that time, dreams that now paled in comparison to the reality of what they'd just done. "Is that why you wouldn't turn me? Because you were afraid you wouldn't be able to stop drinking."

Nandor waited a beat too long before saying, "Yes."

"You know," said Guillermo, "I'm not doing--what we just did--so I can go back to being your familiar. I'm doing it because I think it will protect you, from me and from other slayers, because even if I stay, I'm only human. I'm only going to live so long. I can't protect you forever like that, but like this, you'll be safe long after I'm dead."

"Why are you talking about dying?" said Nandor, like he hadn't been the one to bring it up. "You are a mood- as well as a vampire-killer now?"

"I don't want to go back to being an indentured servant," said Guillermo. "And I'm just being realistic. If you don't like the idea of me not living forever, you could have done something about that too."

Nandor stopped rubbing Guillermo's chest at that and was silent for a while. The sex protection must have worked, because Nandor was about to offer up some bullshit excuse as to why he hadn't turned Guillermo yet, but he would in time, maybe after another ten years, and Guillermo didn't even want to kill him. "About that," he said, finally. "I did have a little chat with Lilith about the anti-aging properties of my semen."

 _Oh._ Guillermo caught Nandor's wrist. He'd thought it had been some weird territorial marking thing, but apparently it was even weirder. And Nandor _had_ been coming into his room during the afternoon, but, again, it was even weirder than he’d thought. "Were you ever going to tell me?"

"It was not long before you left," said Nandor, which wasn't a yes. "She said with regular application of my semen, you could retain your youth for several hundred years. Four at the least. And I wasn't asking you to stay as my familiar, I was asking you to stay as my--you."

He definitely hadn't planned on telling Guillermo. It would have been as good as admitting he wasn't ever going to turn him. Guillermo hadn't installed a lock on his door because part of him had been hoping he'd be ravished by a vampire. Not that he'd get semen smeared all over him when he was unconscious. "You know," he said, dropping his head back down to Nandor's chest, " _Twilight_ also lied about it being romantic to creep on people while they're asleep."

"Fucking book," Nandor muttered. 

"If you'd wanted to--rub your semen on me, you should have asked."

Nandor slipped his wrist out of Guillermo's grasp. "But earlier--"

"Earlier?"

"Would you mind if, when I am applying my semen to rejuvenate you," said Nandor, drawing a deep breath, "we do it like this?" He waved his arm to encompass the coffin, the fugitive rose petals, the absorbent towels. "Or if you want to try other stuff, we could do that too."

Guillermo found himself smiling. "No," he said, taking Nandor's hand. "I wouldn't mind that. I don't know how regularly is regularly, but," he laced their fingers together, "I guess I'll have to stick around."


End file.
